


What is this?

by LTGWS



Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-14
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-22 10:13:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8282221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LTGWS/pseuds/LTGWS
Summary: It has been hours since they've been outside of the dark former Mutiny basement. Gordon gets up, slowly, while grabbing table and stretches his arms above his head. They have been talking down here for hours, Cameron and Joe furiously writing on a whiteboard.“Let's call it a night.” Gordon says. “I think we got a lot done considering where we were this morning. Let's all meet back here around 9am tomorrow?”“Yeah.” Cameron says “Sounds good.”“I'll be here.” Joe says, as he lets out a small smile while looking at Cameron.





	

It has been hours since they've been outside of the dark former Mutiny basement. Gordon gets up, slowly, while grabbing table and stretches his arms above his head. They have been talking down here for hours, Cameron and Joe furiously writing on a whiteboard.  
“Let's call it a night.” Gordon says. “I think we got a lot done considering where we were this morning. Let's all meet back here around 9am tomorrow?”  
“Yeah.” Cameron says “Sounds good.”  
“I'll be here.” Joe says, as he lets out a small smile while looking at Cameron.

Gordon begins to walk up the stairs. It takes them a few seconds longer to gather their things, Joe especially because he is now in a wrist cast. Because of this, Cameron heads up the stairs first. She is exhausted, and is happy that Tom has gone to Texas and she doesn't have to return to a hotel room where someone will be snooping and reading her emails. Just as she reaches the parking lot and begins to walk to her hotel, Joe runs up behind her.

“Hey, Cameron!” he shouts, but in a voice that is softer than his past self.  
She turns around to face him walking speedily towards her.  
“What are you doing right now?” he asks her.  
“Nothing, walking back to my empty hotel room, I guess.” She replies. At the word 'empty' Joe perks up a bit. This means that Tom is gone. They thought, at first, that he was just no longer working on the project, not that he was gone gone.  
“I see that you don't have a car, wold you like a ride?” He asks her in his new, quiet voice.  
“Yeah, sure, I guess.” 

They both get in the car. “So, where to?” Joe asks.  
Cameron looks at him with that look on her face that she had when she asked him to go to the Atari party with her those months ago at COMDEX.  
“How about we go get a drink?” She asks.  
Joe smiles and says “Sure, I could do that.”

He isn't sure why she just asked him that, and he doesn't care. After his fight with Tom yesterday, he won't feel bad for anything that happens. Joe realizes that there were times in the past when he acted like a monster, but after the way Tom has been acting – he knows Cameron deserves better. After all, she has grown up and matured drastically, and she shouldn't be with someone who makes her miserable when she is trying to create something and beat up the people she once was close to.

“Hey, you know, I'm sorry about today. I didn't want things to escalate the way that they did and the last thing I wanted was for all of us to be fighting again.” Joe said to Cameron. She was very surprised to hear this because she was sure this was Tom's fault, and that Joe had nothing to apologize for. However, Joe was saying it just to say it, so that he could assure her that he genuinely cared about her and that what happened at COMDEX wasn't something he wanted to be a one time occurrence. She was married, he knew that. But if she came to him and chose to be with him, he would drop everything.  
“Joe, this was all Tom. You don't have anything to apologize for. He was just being a jerk. You know, he read my emails the other night. I came home and he was on my computer, because he said his had died. But really he was spying on me. You know, as explosive as we were together, neither of us ever stooped that low.” She said to him, he eyes trained on the passing trees outside the car window.  
Joe looked over at her, and he could see that she was conflicted. “No,” Joe said “we didn't.”  
And he continued to drive.

Several minutes later they pulled up outside of a bar, and silently walked inside. Cameron took a seat at the bar, and Joe sat next to her. She leaned closer into him and said “God, I could really use a beer right now.”  
Joe turned his head to her and said “Okay.” and then he raised his arm slightly to get the attention of the bartender. “Can we have two.” and a few seconds later, they were drinking.  
“You know, you're really different now. You're kind of the same though, too.” Cameron said as he turned to Joe.  
Joe was previously looking at his beer but he turned his head up to face her. “You are different, Cam. We both are. We stayed the same, though.” He said and then looked down at his beer again.

“Why is that? Why is it that we keep finding ways into each others lives even after four years, while I'm married in Japan and you're in California?”  
“You know, I'm not really sure. There must be something to it, I just don't know what it is.”  
“When I found out about Ryan, I almost didn't want to move to Tokyo. I wanted to run from my house and go to you. God, Joe, I can't imagine what you were feeling. I was too angry at you, though. Which was wrong, but I was. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there.” Cameron looked down, drained the last of beer, and set it down on the bar. Then she turned to him.  
“Why did you ask me to get a drink with you, Cameron?”  
“You know why.” She said the same thing to him that he said to her at COMDEX and then Joe responded by saying “Nope. Tell me.”  
“You. To see you.”

Joe briefly thought about ordering them two more beers, but decided it was best to leave. He waved the bartender over and asked him for the bill, knowing Cameron was watching him the whole time.

“What are you doing?” She asked.  
“It's getting late” he said “I think we should call it a night.” and she said “Yeah, maybe we should.”

They got back in his car and drove to his apartment. Cameron hadn't seen it yet. It used to be dark and dirty and dusty, but after seeing Cameron at COMDEX he decided that he needed to clean his act up. Now, the windows were open, the couches and tables were clean, the lights worked. It was small, yes, but it is much nicer now than it was six months ago. '

Once inside, they didn't waste any time. Joe didn't even bother to turn the lights on. It was dark out now, and the light from the street light outside his window provided just enough luminescence to guide them to the bedroom. He stopped in front of his bed, and she came and stood against him, toe to toe and eye to eye. 

He was looking at her, looking in her eyes. Trying to see what she was thinking, but he didn't need to, because he could feel it. He was breathing heavy and she was staring at him, her eyes eating him up. Last time she had initiated it, so he knew that this was his turn. Years ago they would have been fighting for dominance, he would have been trying to control her, and she would have been fighting it. Not anymore, though. Now they did not care about who came out on top, only that they were together.

Joe looked down at her eyes, almost to let her know that he was going to do this, and he wasn't going to stop. She was waiting. He took his arms and he wrapped them around her back and he pulled her into him close, and hard. He crashed his lips into hers. She returned this immediately. It took only several seconds for him to begin taking her clothes off. First, the jacket. He ripped it off of her and threw it haphazardly across the room. He then pulled her shirt over her head and pulled her tightly against his body. She backed away only enough to grab the hem on his shirt at his waist and forcefully yank it over his head. Now, they were skin to skin. Cameron saw Joe's scars and she started to kiss them, this sent him over the edge. He wrapped his hands around her waist and hoisted her up. He walked forward and threw her small form onto the bed, and was on top of her in less than a second. They were hungry. It had been months, and while there was no doubt Cameron was having sex, they both knew that there was no other sex like this sex. 

They were pressed up against his bed, but they were not under the sheets. They had not stopped kissing since they walked in his house. Cameron undid his belt and his zipper, freeing him from the constraint of his pants. This evoked a loud guttural groan from Joe. Hearing those noises made Cameron go crazy. Soon they were on top of each other fighting for dominance, and then he was inside. The passion was overwhelming. As soon as it was over, they lay next to each other panting. 

Joe rolls off of Cameron and lays down next to her. He turns his head towards her and she does the same. For a few minutes they don't say anything, they just look at each other. Joe can see in her eyes that she is unsure of all of this, but she leans her head into the crook between his shoulder and his neck anyway. Joe wanted to talk to her, but he knew the situation was fragile and he did not want to scare her away, so he just lay there. He lifted up his arm and he rested it on her side, closing his eyes taking in the moment. For a second he thought she was going to sleep, until she said “What does this mean?”

Joe had half the mind to sit up, to tell her what he had just told Gordon, but he did not want to scare her away. Instead he propped himself on his elbows and said “What do you want this to mean?”

Cameron followed suit and propped herself on her elbows as well. They are now laying close to each other facing forward, until she turns to face him, he face only a few inches from his. His breath catches in is throat and then begins to quicken. “Cam.” he says.

“I don't know what this is. You know, I was happy with Tom, kind of. When I left with him for Japan I didn't really know what I was doing. Mutiny was pulled out from under me, Ryan...you know, and then I was on a plane to Tokyo. When you came to my house that day to ask for my help to find him, I just, I couldn't stop thinking of you. I was mad, though; and I got on the plane.”  
“Hm.” Joe responded.  
“Then when I got to Tokyo, I couldn't come home. I couldn't even call you because I wouldn't know what to say, but I did think about it. When I planned COMDEX, I was going to find you afterward, but then you showed up at my booth, and I was happy. I don't feel like that when I see Tom for the first time after a long time, I don't feel like I'm on fire when I have sex with him, and he doesn't inspire me to create anything. But you, you do.”  
“Donna called me a couple of days before COMDEX, to tell you about the idea. I told her that I wouldn't play messenger between the two of you and that she shouldn't have my number and I hung up. Before I did that, though, when she said 'Cameron will be there' I packed my bag right then. I knew that I was going, but I didn't tell her. I had to see you, even if I had to go to COMDEX to do it.”  
“It's weird, that we always find a way into each others lives. It's 1990 now. We met each other 8 years ago. There is so much history between us, good and bad. Every time we get close to each other I'm reminded of the me I was then and the you that you were then. Those people could have never made anything work.”  
“Cam, we're not those people anymore and this isn't that time. When I said yesterday that this future can be different, I was talking about us. I was talking about our future.”  
“I know that. It can be different. The night that we spent together in Vegas was so, just fun. I haven't had fun like that in a long time. It felt really good to see you, Joe. And when we went back to my room, I knew what I was doing. The truth is, I didn't even care about Tom. Its like you have this power over me. Like we're drawn to each other, or something.”  
“Maybe that's because we're the same.”  
“Maybe we are. But right now, I don't know what to do about this or us or Tom. I don't want to leave him, pick up my life and move back here, just to have you walk away from me. I don't want to throw away everything I have and end up with nothing.”  
“Do you remember that night you went to see Simon at the photography show and I was talking to him outside, and you were sitting in the cab? I don't know how long you were waiting, but you told the cab driver to go. I ran after the cab. I saw you leaving and I instinctively ran to you. Then I got in the car and you were crying, and you looked at me and said 'are you gonna get bored of me?' and I said 'I don't know.' and we just sat in silence the whole way home.”  
“Of course I remember that, I don't think I'll ever be able to forget no matter how hard I try.”  
“I don't want you to forget Cameron, because that was 7 years ago, and I'm still here. I didn't get bored of you while you were doing Mutiny, I didn't get bored of you when I was with Sara, I didn't get bored of you the 4 years you were in Japan, I didn't get bored of you at COMDEX, and I didn't get bored of you talking about the WWW. If you asked me that question again, I would say 'No' because I'm not. I'm not ever going to get bored of you.”  
Cameron lifted her head and look Joe right in the eye. “What if this doesn't work? Let's just say I move back here, and I leave Tom, and we take on this project. Right? Cool. What if the project tears us apart? What is this just won't work because we take turns destroying each other. What if we have an argument and we crash the project, and just end up back at the beginning?”  
“None of those things are going to happen.” Joe said as he looked down at her.  
“You don't know that.”She shot back.  
“Neither do you.” He replied.

Cameron immediately remembered that at COMDEX they were having the same conversation, only the roles were reversed. She remembered that he trusted her then, and that she should trust him now.

“Okay.” She said.


End file.
